Hatsugoori
by Fate VII
Summary: Of ice and tomb robbers, as told by Mokuba Kaiba. If you prefer to think of Mokuba as a innocent little boy, you should run screaming in the opposite direction now. Well, he does inherit a penchant for murder...


Fate: This isn't exactly a sequel to Jinmirai, Mai Kaitou, but I suppose it _could_ be taken as such. There will also be a Bakura POV on this whole deal sometime soon, I hope. It's kicking around in my mind and fighting for control with an idea for a new fic, too. *knocks head on wall several times in great agitation*

Disclaimer: Yu-Gi-Oh is the property of Kazuki Takahashi. We can tell Fate wishes that Yu-Gi-Oh went more into depth with the relationship between Bakura and Mokuba. 

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You're in your element, out there in all that ice and snow. 

You and ice...you're so perfect together. So heartbreakingly perfect. You're so much alike. You can be transparent or opaque, cold or warm, ever-changing with a hidden core...

Ice melts, you know.

Do you melt?

Maybe you're simply dihydrogen monoxide personified. Ever-malleable, fickle and changing, loving one second and hating the next. You loathe and love with the same blinding passion. You cling to life and push it away at the same time. You are the epitome of contradictions.

You can be solid and real as life one second, then you can be less than vapor the next. 

It's a funny phrase, 'real as life'. Funny because I use it to describe one long dead. You've fallen to sand and ashes. 

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust--Seto whispered that when he pushed Gozaburo out the window.

I have murder in my blood. Murder and determination.

I repress it as I stand here, feeling it boil but not wishing to despoil the pulchritude I see before me.

God help me, for I know not what I do.

Someone forgive me for my sins before I spoil you just by existing.

You're beautiful in the falling ice and snow. It completes you somehow, makes you more of what you are, softens you and hardens you at the same time...

It's kind of like the one who's out there with you, now that I think about it. He makes you whole and makes you sweet and makes you murderous and simply makes and unmakes you by just _being_ there...

I wish I could be the one to do that to you.

Did you know that you could do that to me?

I doubt it.

It's so very odd. You have a hikari. You have Ryou. You can make him glow and shine and emphasize the innocence and brightness of him so very easily just like he makes you all shadowy and jaded and breathtaking.

Where am I in this equation?

I'm not.

That's the strange part.

How can I be so affected like this? Standing among the trees that outline his yard, feeling the snow drift down and slowly turn my black hair white, watching you hungrily and desperately, I curse myself and you and Ryou all at the same time. I shouldn't be here, a hidden voyeur to snowy light and icy dark during the first blizzard of the year.

I think you love Ryou.

I know he loves you.

I...I lust after you, I hunger for you, I...

There's no place for me...

I didn't know why you wavered. I didn't know why you wanted to desert Ryou. I didn't understand. Was it my brother's company? Was it Industrial Illusions? Why would you need either when you couldn't even read?

Why would you need a thing when you had Ryou?

I'm smarter now. You only wanted your own physical form so you could claim Ryou and love him like a normal person would, and so he could reciprocate the sentiments. You had your chance to take me, but you didn't. I understand now. You were only bluffing Honda...looking tough as always, carefully hiding that fragile interior that only Ryou can see.

I don't know what prompted you to not take me...

Was it my youth? The fact that I could indeed have helped you take over the world as you said you wished? 

The fact that you knew somehow that I wouldn't let you go once I had you as mine?

But you stayed in Ryou, and finally found a way to gain a physical body of your own without having to bother with other human hosts.

I never had a chance. I will _never_ have a chance.

You'll never choose me. You have the other half of your soul there with you, cheerfully stuffing snow down the back of your shirt as you shiver in the cold. 

This isn't Egypt, my dear tomb robber. You can't yet do like I can, and wander the streets with only fleece-lined jeans and a down vest as extra protection.

I shouldn't worry too much about you, though. Ryou will take care of you and solicitously bring you inside and warm you up with heavy blankets and the radiator and touches and kisses.

God, I wish I could be the one to do that...

I see your face now--it's radiant, glowing. You're half-frozen but in a state of bliss out there with your hikari, your true love, your soulmate. 

I think you've forgotten I exist. You have no conscience for me to stain.

_He_ feels these things for you and holds you back and gives you a semblance of humanity.

I'd love to hate him, but I can't. He makes you happy, he makes you whole, he makes you dark and beautiful and breathtaking and he just makes you...

I think I might _unmake_ you.

I once thought Ryou could never make you shine like the bloodthirsty, beautiful creature that you are. That only one as dark and cruel as I could do so. I didn't think light could do anything but diminish you.

That was just a fantasy, it seems, a little dream of my own to harbor, a little loophole to let me into your life...

I swipe the back of my hand under my burning eyes. My tears are frozen on my face like bitter kisses of ice.

I wish you'd given them to me directly instead of this painful tearing roundabout way that leaves me alone and forgotten, hiding in a stand of pine trees and feasting my eyes on your luster in the silver-white backdrop of the blizzard. I wish instead of my clawing at my cheekbones it was teeth on bone, biting through skin rather than tearing at it. I wish someone else would hurt me so I wouldn't have to keep hurting myself.

I wish I knew what was real.

I'll be out here, terrified of being seen but longing for you to run over to me and grab me and kiss me and twine your fingers in my hair and keep me warm just like I'll do to you.

But instead I'm alone with your kisses of ice and my lust for your darkness.

They're cruel company indeed, my lovely icy tomb robber.

Just like you.

&

Fluffy: So review, since this story has...very few at the moment. _


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